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Sunday, November 17, 2013

Zone Tigers

Recently there has been talk about “Tigers” in the OSR gossip world. Tigers being animals that appear
specifically adapted to hunt humans.From my understanding of the fossil record, and especially of how the big
cats hunt baboons with terror, perhaps jaguars
would be a better name for these beasts, but any large hunting cat will do and the
label tigers has the advantage of a Borges reference.The beast that “can only be faced by a man of
war, on a castle atop an elephant.”

Below are a pair of “Tigers” specifically for the “Zone”,
inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic, and FATE SF “Zone Project”.These aren’t simple anomalies, mutants, or extraterrestrial
horrors, they specifically hunt the Stalkers that seek to plunder alien
artifacts from the Zone.

A Real Zone

Rust Tiger – While
greed or curiosity is the lure that brings stalkers and scientists into the
zones, once behind the nightmare curtain of the zone, every investigator craves
only safety and survival.The Rust Tiger
hunts with hope, the lure of safe passage amongst the horrors of the Zone, and
it hunts with a will beyond hunger and animal cruelty.Rust Tigers hunt only men, and will not even
harm the dogs that stalkers sometimes use as scouts or defenders, and Rust
Tigers show actual malice and cunning, even an art, in their predations.

The source of the Rust Tiger’s malice is unknown, but the
more poetic of the stalkers claim that the secret of the beasts’ rage is found
in its form.While every Rust Tiger is
different they all appear as the detritus of everyday life, objects of home and
convenience left to decay, corrode and rust in the unwholesome environment of the
zone.Indistinguishable from any mound
of domestic debris or spray of forgotten objects half buried in the mud of a
ruined cellar the Rust Tiger waits in ambush. Some animating force however controls these
seemingly random bits of trash, and suddenly it will rear up from concealment, tearing
with claws of thick television screen glass, gnashing with jaws of broken
coffee mugs, and flowing quick and deadly on limbs of warped furniture.

It’s size and ferocity alone would make the Rust Tiger
dangerous, but not especially so, more troubling is its subtle ability to touch
the hearts and emotions of its prey.When a Rust Tiger skulks near, the only sign
is the sense of safety or the smirking suspicion that one has discovered a safe
route through the Zone. This is the way the Rust Tiger baits it’s trap, the
shattered living room where the Rust Tiger awaits will seem the safest path,
with a lingering bit of the old comfort it held before it became another
fragment of the zone.Yet once the Rust
Tiger Springs into action this power to cloud human emotions works the other
way, gone is any sense of safety and waves of terror will ripple from the
tiger, leaving many who confront it bereft of any sense.

* Immune to bullets and other piercing weapons, 1/2 damage to all but explosive weapons

** Suprise on 1-5 from ambush, all efforts to detect at -50%, sight causes fear and confusion (save v. spells each round to act)

Grey Friend – Seemingly
specifically adapted to prey on the human sense of trust and loyalty, these
entities may not even be sentient themselves, existing only with a borrowed,
stolen will.Should a Stalker become separated
from the group it places the entire salvage gang at risk from the Grey Friend.In even a moment or two a Grey Friend may
insinuate itself into the mind and soul of a lone stalker as long as he is unobserved.There are no reports of the Grey Friend’s appearance
in the moments before it dominates its victim, but once it has a host, the host
will invariably injure himself.An
accidental gunshot wound, a broken ankle coming down crumbling steps or a
clumsy spill of caustics blinding the host.These injuries will never be fatal, or even near fatal, simply
debilitating and require the assistance of others to return the host to
civilization.

As long as the crippled host is carried, led or helped the
Grey Friend will remain quiescent within, the host becoming ingratiating,
facing his injury with stoic camaraderie and good humor – anything to keep the
rest of the band sympathetic and elicit help.However, the longer companions aid an infected host the more difficult
it will become.The host becomes heavier
if carried, wounds reopen, requiring delay and additional medical supplies, and
all manner of minor inconveniences slow the group offering other zone horrors a
chance to attack.

More philosophical stalkers believe that the Grey Friend
devours the sympathy of friends, and all know that it desire most to leave the
Zone.Of course the world beyond the
zone is antithetical to the stuff of the Grey Friend and will catastrophically destroy
it. Many a bedraggled group of Stalkers has been killed on the
edge of escape from the zone, while lifting the body of an injured friend over
the last barricades of razor wire, when the Grey Friend explodes in a cyclone
of razor edged ash and caustic mist.

If physically attacked while in the zone, the Grey Friend
will be revealed in all of its hungry twisting majesty, but this no better than
attempting to evacuate its host.Wounds
made to the Friend’s host will erupt in long wisps of whips and hooks, both
solid and immaterial, like sprays of fine ash that can bore and slash through
the best protective suit in seconds.Bullets, blades and blows on tear up the host, producing more deadly
tendrils or pass harmlessly through the entity with a puff of grey dust.One of the few Stalkers to survive an
encounter with a Grey Friend claimed thathis band destroyed or drove of the creature with directed radiation,
though why stalkers should carry a microwave gun makes his story
questionable.The Institute theorizes
that high energy weapons, such as plasma jets or even lasers, might also be
capable of harming a Grey Friend, but no one have ever tried to test this
theory.

The only safe way to protect oneself from a hunting Grey
Friend is to abandon friendship within the zone, leaving any behind who cannot
fend for themselves, even if their injuries appear minor.

7 comments:

"Abandon Friendship": now that is one terrible last ditch defense! Both these entries are great. They finally give A.E. Van Vogt's "Black Destroyer", prowling some alien Zone on a dead world-city, some worthy company much closer to home.

The jellied legs belonged to a Stalker known as the Vulture, IIRC. And Red was so callous in how he let the Vulture's son "lead the way" later in the book. That kind of shocked me, although I don't know why anything does any more.